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LOL Made my day Paul a Rover V8 fit Kombis real good thats a cool trailer as for the dump truck I bet that freaked the driver out shit glad it wasnt me, I love the power windows and it reminds me of something.My electric start mower.

I have seen a pair of Vise-Grips used as a semi-permanent window crank on at least one older car. I had one of mine break off (!), with the window down, during a super-cold Wisconsin winter–had to drive straight to the Chevy dealer down the street for a replacement to avoid having sub-zero air in the car. (I don’t recall using Vise-Grips though.)

Back in the early 70s, my scoutmaster had a 69 Cortina. The stick shift broke off about an inch from the base and he clamped some vice grips onto it, which served as the shifter for the rest of that car’s abbreviated life. Crude, but effective.

Perhaps dodgy gear levers is a British Ford thing. Back around 1990 I had a 73 Escort (the Ford sort, not the lady-of-the-night sort), the gear lever used to come out of the tunnel in my hand… Got very adept at re-inserting it on the move. The bodywork so rotten that I jacked it up to change a flat and the car sank down as the jacking point gave way and it and the extended jack passed up through the floor and lifted the back seat…but that’s another story for another time.

I presume that the power window adapter on the Chevy pickup has an inverter plugged into the lighter to power the battery charger to keep the drill running. Wouldn’t it have been easier to go to the wrecking yard and buy a crank?

Paul – you’ll have to do a CC on a diesel VW rabbit pusher (front bumper to firewall) – several have been made, often to boost a Rabbit EV on long trips. I’m sure that at least one of those setups is, or used to be down in your neck of the woods. Back when I was more active in the EV scene this topic came up every now and then.